Erick Estrada of Ventura sentenced to life without parole plus 126 years in connection with 2013 murder and attempted murder of two others
VENTURA COUNTY, Calif. – Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko announced Thursday that Erick Estrada was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 126 years to life for the 2013 murder of Gabriel Gutierrez and the attempted murder of two other men.
Estrada was previously convicted on Feb. 14, 2024, for the first-degree murder of Gutierrez and for the attempted murder and assault with a firearm of Michael Owens and Thomas Bakkila state the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.
Special allegations related to all charged counts were also found to be true including that Estrada committed the murder while lying in wait explain the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.
On Jun. 15, 2013, Estrada and a juvenile co-defendant confronted two men near the Ventura Pier state the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.
According to the Ventura County District Attorney's Office, the juvenile co-defendant started a fistfight with the two men, later identified as Owens and Bakkila, and during the fight, Estrada pulled a handgun and fired multiple rounds at both men.
Both Owens and Bakkila sustained gunshot wounds, but survived their injuries share the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.
In a separate incident on Jul. 31, 2013, Estrada and a different juvenile co-defendant confronted Gutierrez inside of the Ventura County Fairgrounds and challenged him to a fight detail the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.
The group exited the fairgrounds and gathered at a more secluded area near a train trestle at the river bottom state the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.
After a fistfight between the juvenile and Gutierrez, Estrada fired multiple rounds from a handgun at Gutierrez who died at the scene explain the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.
After an investigation, Estrada was arrested for the murder of Gutierrez on Jul. 22, 2014 at the Ventura County Jail where he was being held on attempted murder charges linked to the incident on Jun. 15 detail the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.
